The Secret to Solving Problems

The Secret to Solving Problems

Let’s talk about ‘The Secret to Solving Problems’. We all face challenges and we believe, things will turn around: a child that's off course, a sickness we're dealing with or a dream that seems impossible. We pray, we try, but nothing is changing. Sometimes Almighty won't allow you to solve your own problem. The secret is you have to help someone else solve their problem. You have to take the focus off yourself and be good to others in your time of need. As you sow that seed, it's going to bring the harvest that you're waiting for.

You'll be tempted to think, ‘I can't help them, got my own problem. I need to spend my energy trying to fix my situation’. But if you'll take your hands off of your problem and got be good to someone else, Almighty will put His support in solving your problem and make things happen that you couldn't make happen. While you're working on their situation, Almighty is working on your situation.

A friend of mine struggled with his teenage son for many years. It was like; they were on different wavelengths. He tried his best to be loving and understanding, but they just couldn't get along. Invariably there would be an argument, everything was so contentious (argumentative). He had prayed about it, quoted great sayings, asked Almighty to help him, but nothing was getting any better. He was the coach of the neighborhood baseball team. There was a young man in the team, that came from a poor family and was struggling in his schoolwork. When this father learned about it, he took that young man under his supervision. He started bringing him home from baseball practice with his son, and he would help him do his schoolwork. He tutored him, he mentored him and became an ideal figure in his life.

This young man looked up to him, admired him greatly. About six months after he started doing this, his relationship with his own son began to improve. They got closer, started doing things together. Today they're the best friends. You can't pull them apart. The secret to his problem being solved wasn't in praying more, wasn't in working harder, it was in helping solve someone else's problem. When you pray for your friends, solution to your problems quickly comes. Don't you know how many times you pray for yourself, when you wasn't feeling well? ‘Almighty, please restore health back into me. Please free me from this pain’, and that's good, that's releasing your faith. I'm simply saying don't stop there, because there are times when your breakthrough is connected to helping someone else get their breakthrough.

Now maybe you've been praying diligently, standing in faith so strong, but nothing is improving - now it's time to go be a blessing. Look around: where is a need you can meet? Go pray for that neighbor, that's under the weather. Go encourage that co-worker, that's struggling. Go help that friend accomplish their dream. As you're helping others, you may not be able to see it, but Almighty is helping you. He's lining up the promotion, the success, the breakthroughs. You can't sew a seed without reaping a harvest.

When you make sacrifices to help other people's dream come to pass, Almighty will make sure your dream comes to pass. Don't stay focused only on yourself, ‘My goals, my problems, my trouble at work’. Get your mind off yourself and go be a blessing, sow a seed. Doesn't have to be finances, you can sow encouragement, go to the hospital and visit that loved one, cheer them up. Call that friend and speak life into their dreams. Take that elderly neighbor dinner each night, make an extra plate for them. When it's in your power to do good, don't withhold it from others. When you know, you can be a blessing, you have the resources to help that person in need, you can teach them the talents you've learned, don't put it off. When you help solve their problem, you're not just being good to them, you are setting a miracle in motion for yourself. When you help, you will receive help.

Here's the beauty: when you help others, what you give, is going to come back to you, but not in the same proportion - press down, shaken together, running over. Your help was for one time, but the blessings from that obedience will come permanently. When you're in difficult times, more than ever you need to look for opportunities to do good. When your dream seems impossible, find somebody else and help their dream come to pass. It's good to pray, to believe, to work hard, but there are some things that are not going to happen if you're only focused on yourself. As you bless others, Almighty will bless you. As you show kindness, kindness will come to you.

When you give your time, your energy, your resources, your talent, you will never end up with less. That is a seed you're sowing, that's going to keep coming back to you. I am reaping a harvest from seeds of obedience, that my parents sowed years ago. When you live a life of generosity, making sacrifices for others to come up higher, that's not only going to impact you for the good, it's going to impact your children, your grandchildren, those seeds are going to keep on producing.

Seeds of obedience, seeds of being good to people, keep on producing in the family line, generations after generations. Every time you help someone in need, it's not only going to help you, but you are storing up blessings for your children. Every time you help solve someone's problem, every time you make sacrifices, so they can go further. You're sowing a seed, so not only you can go further, but those that come after you in your family line to go further. They will see blessings, protection, help because you made decisions that honored Almighty.

Yousuf AS had a big dream. As a teenager Almighty put a dream in his heart, that he would be in leadership and do great things. But his brothers were jealous of him. They didn't like his big dream. They threw him into a pit (17 Y). They were going to tell their father that he was killed by a wild animal. They ended up selling Yousuf AS into slavery. He was working for a man in Egypt. Even though Yousuf AS had a big problem, even though his dreams had been shattered, what was he doing? Sitting around in self-pity, blaming Almighty? No, in the midst of that problem, he started helping the owner with his problem. He ran owner's whole household, he organized all the staff, made sure the grounds were clean, the property protected, the supplies in place.

Instead of focusing on his problem, he was being good to someone else. At one point Yousuf AS was falsely accused and put in prison. Surely now he would be bitter, depressed, but in the prison some of his cellmates had a problem. They had a dream and didn't understand what it meant. Yousuf AS didn't say, ‘Too bad for you. I'm depressed, I don't like being here’. He said, ‘I can interpret dreams, let me help you with your problem’. He interpreted their dreams. One of the cellmates was released. Few years later Aziz, the leader of the country had a dream and didn't understand what it meant. The former cellmate said, ‘I know someone that can interpret dreams’.

Yousuf AS came before the Aziz, told him how the dream had to do with the food supply, how there were years of famine coming and how important it was to store up the grain, get everything organized and prepared before the drought. Aziz looked at Yousuf AS and said, ‘You're the right man for the job. Nobody can do it better than you’. He made Yousuf AS second-in-command of Egypt. What was Yousuf AS doing for Aziz? Solving a problem, strategically getting everything lined up, using his expertise, his talents, his skills to help the people that were holding him captive. Yousuf AS was so excellent, that other nations came to study his operation.

I'm sure that Yousuf AS was grateful to be out of prison, to have this influential position, but deep down he still missed his family. He never thought he would see his father again, whom he loves so much. He had already accepted that it was too late. But as Yousuf AS was helping Aziz with his problem, back home in Kinaan, his brothers were loading up the camels, about to head to Egypt to try to find food. They had heard the only place that had the supplies was at the palace, where Yousuf AS was in charge. Notice, what Almighty was doing. While Yousuf AS was working on Aziz's problem, Almighty was working on Yousuf AS's problem. He couldn't see it at the time. Everything looked just the same, but what Yousuf AS didn't know was the camels were coming, his brothers were on the way.

I can imagine, one evening, there was a knock on the palace gates, the guards looked outside, saw this caravan of camels. They asked the people what they wanted? They said, they were looking for food. One of the guards went to Yousuf AS, said, ‘Some people just arrived, they want to purchase grain’. It was late in the day, Yousuf AS was tired, he was about to say, ‘Tell them to leave, don't bother us’, but for some reason he changed his mind and went out to meet them. He (39 Y after 22 years) couldn't believe it, it was his brothers. You would think, he would want to get revenge, the truth is he was so grateful to see them, he was overwhelmed with emotion.

They didn't recognize him. Eventually he told them who he was and they all wept together. He asked if their father was still alive? They said that he was. All those years Yousuf AS spent helping other people with their problems, doing the right thing, even when it wasn't fair. That whole time Almighty was watching. Almighty sees your faithfulness, He sees you helping others when you need help. You encouraging that friend, when they need encouragement. You praying for that neighbor that's not feeling well, when you're fighting an illness. May seem like nothing is happening, but Almighty is working. What you can't see is the camels are being loaded up. What you thought would never happen is still on the way.

Yousuf AS's father and whole family came to Egypt to live with Yousuf AS. His father thought Yousuf AS was dead. Yousuf AS thought that his father had already passed. But now, the two of them were embracing, weeping, it was a dream come true, Yousuf AS's (41 Y after 24 years) problem was finally solved. It didn't happen the way Yousuf AS thought, he didn't go back home to Kinaan, but his family was able to come to Egypt and enjoy all the blessings and honor, that Almighty had given Yousuf AS. But none of this would have happened, if Yousuf AS would have been ingrown. ‘I'm not gonna help this man, the owner, I had my own problems. I'm not gonna help these prisoners, they've never done anything for me. I'm not gonna interpret Aziz's dream, use my expertise to run the food supply, he needs to do something for me’.

Yousuf AS (Hebron and Egypt distance 250 miles) understood this principle: when you're working on someone else's problem, Almighty is working on your problem. You may think that you could never get well, never break that addiction, never accomplish your dream, it's been too long. But if you'll do like Yousuf AS and just keep being good to people, keep helping solve their problems, keep helping their dreams to come to pass - what you can't see is the camels are coming. What Almighty started, he's going to finish. It's going to surprise you, there's going to be a knock on the door, something that you weren't expecting. Like when Yousuf AS's brothers showed up at the palace unexpectedly, help is going to show up for you unexpectedly, freedom from addictions unexpectedly, suddenly the right person find you, suddenly that door of opportunity opens.
[Yaqoob AS was 91 when Joseph was born. He was 130 when he saw Yousuf AS again after 24 years of separation. He died 147 after living 17 years in Egypt.]

You thought it was too late, but the whole time you were helping others, the camels were in row. Almighty has not forgotten about you, those seeds you've sown have not gone unnoticed. Those times you've come to serve others while you had problems at home, you prayed for others when you weren't feeling well. You could have stayed at home, ‘Almighty! when you do something for me, then I'll be my best’, but you just kept being your best, making sacrifices to help others, giving away what you needed for your dreams - get ready for some surprises, get ready for Almighty to show out in your life, get ready for something that you haven't seen. It's going to be unusual, out of the ordinary and it's going to thrust you into your destiny.

Years ago, what happened to my friend couple, their sixteen-year-old son was killed in an automobile accident. It wasn't easy, but they didn't get bitter, they didn't give up on life, they kept moving forward. Eventually they started a charity in the name of their son. They built hospitals, orphanages, schools, done great work all over. Few years ago their daughter married a young man, that grew up in the orphanage that they started. All birthed out of the loss of their son.

What if the couple wouldn't have reached out to help others in their time of need? They could have thought, ‘Well, we could have been bitter, and certainly man, Almighty, we lost a loved one, well this isn't right, this isn't fair'. Instead their attitude was, 'Yes, we're hurting, but we know, when we help others, Almighty! you'll help us. We know, when we work on others problems, you'll work on our problems'. They started sowing seeds, taking care of orphans, giving education to the less fortunate. Being good to people without expecting anything in return. When they started that orphanage, they never dreamed that their son-in-law would grow up there. They never dreamed that he would marry their daughter and become a part of their family. When you help others, you may think, you're just being good to them, but you don't know what Almighty is up to. You can't help someone without Almighty being good back to you. You don't know the blessings and help that are connected to you helping someone else rise.

But I wonder what we miss, when we live ingrown. We only focus on what we've lost, how we've been hurt, ‘Almighty, I've got this big problem, you got to help me’. Go, be a blessing, your miracle is waiting for you as you help others. And sometimes the reason you can't solve your problem is because what you need is found in solving someone else's problem. If you will help them succeed, like with that couple, your son-in-law will show up, things will happen unexpectedly, that you didn't see coming. 
I know, many of you have been doing this, going out of your way to be good to people, making sacrifices to help solve their problems - get ready, the camels are coming. What you're believing for, is already in row. I believe, those seeds you've been sowing are about to come back to you, press down, shaken together, running over. It's going to be more than you can imagine. Promotion, help, breakthroughs, the right people, the fullness of your destiny.